Saturday, August 23, 2008

A fine Saturday to you, or Sunday if you're an Australian who (according to my time charts) lives in the future ;) Today, we've got some more jokes and humour, of a Unix and Linux flavour. None of our senses of humour are probably exactly the same, but I try to pick out some halfway decent stuff for you and then, of course, refer you to the joke page where I found these little nuggets and heartily recommend that you check out the main workjoke.com site just in case you find a whole bunch of other stuff that makes you laugh on their other pages. I can't vouch for the content on a site I don't control (a lot of the jokes there are the same ones you've heard 50 times already today), but I thought this site offered a good bit of variety and some fresh material that warranted a little wholesome all-American co-opting. Of course, the credit for the content goes first to workjoke and then to the respective authors to whom they give attribution.

The only bizarre thing about today's post is that the keywords I used to index it (before Blogspot insisted on ordering them alphabetically) spell out "Funny Linux Unix Humour Joke Laugh Computer." To fans of Asian cinema who remember the good old days when the dubbing was done by people who weren't at all interested in the subtle differences between cultures and languages, the string of hapless descriptives and sterile nouns may bring back fond memories of a bad movie you saw a long time ago and have been trying to forget ever since. I'm starting to get a little misty... gonna go see if "Johnny Socko" is playing on TV-Land ;)

Cheers,

- "Have you heard about the object-oriented way to become wealthy?"

- "No..."

- "Inheritance."

If you can touch it and you can see it, it's REAL.

If you can touch it but you can't see it, it's TRANSPARENT.

If you can't touch it but you can see it, it's VIRTUAL.

If you can't touch it and you can't see it, it's GONE.

If you can pick it up, it's a PC.

If you can't pick it up but you can push it over, it's a minicomputer.

Once a programmer drowned in the sea. Many Marines where at that time on thebeach, but the programmer was shouting "F1 F1" and nobody understood it.

The boy is smoking and leaving smoke rings into the air.

The girl gets irritated with the smoke and says to her lover: "Can't you seethe warning written on the cigarettes packet, smoking is injurious to health!"

The boy replies back: "Darling, I am a programmer. We don't worry about warnings, we only worry about errors."

Jack was a COBOL programmer in the mid to late 1990s. After years of beingtaken for granted and treated as a technological dinosaur by all theClient/Server programmers and website developers, he was finally gettingsome respect. He'd become a private consultant specializing in Year 2000conversions.

Several years of this relentless, mind-numbing work had taken its tollon Jack. He began having anxiety dreams about the Year 2000. All he couldthink about was how he could avoid the year 2000 and all that came with it.

Jack decided to contact a company that specialized in cryogenics.He made a deal to have himself frozen until March 15th, 2000. Thenext thing he would know is he'd wake up in the year 2000; after theNew Year celebrations and computer debacles; after the leap day.Nothing else to worry about except getting on with his life.

He was put into his cryogenic receptacle, the technicians set therevive date, he was given injections to slow his heartbeat to a bareminimum, and that was that.

The next thing that Jack saw was an enormous and very modern roomfilled with excited people. They were all shouting "I can't believeit!" and "It's a miracle" and "He's alive!". There were cameras(unlike any he'd ever seen) and equipment that looked like it came outof a science fiction movie.

Someone who was obviously a spokesperson for the group steppedforward. Jack couldn't contain his enthusiasm. "Is it over?" heasked. "Is the year 2000 already here? Are all the millennial parties andpromotions and crises all over and done with?"

The spokesman explained that there had been a problem with theprogramming of the timer on Jack's cryogenic receptacle, it hadn'tbeen year 2000 compliant. It was actually eight thousand years later,not the year 2000. Technology had advanced to such a degree thateveryone had virtual reality interfaces which allowed them to contactanyone else on the planet.

"Well," said the spokesman. "The year 10000 is just around thecorner, and it says in your files that you know COBOL".

APL is a write-only language.

In C we had to code our own bugs. In C++ we can inherit them.

C gives you enough rope to hang yourself. C++ also gives you the tree objectto tie it to.

With C you can shoot yourself in the leg. With C++ you can reuse the bullet.

A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cakewithout ketchup and mustard.

PL/I is for programmers who can't decide whether to write in COBOL orFortran.

The most important thing in the programming language is the name. A languagewill not succeed without a good name. I have recently invented a very good name and now I am looking for a suitable language.

D. E. Knuth, 1967

Why all Pascal programmers ask to live in Atlantis?

Because it is below C level.

Programming Languages are Like Cars

Assembler: A formula I race car. Very fast but difficult to drive and maintain.

FORTRAN II: A Model T Ford. Once it was the king of the road.

FORTRAN IV: A Model A Ford.

FORTRAN 77: a six-cylinder Ford Fairlane with standard transmission and no seat belts.

COBOL: A delivery van. It's bulky and ugly but it does the work.

BASIC: A second-hand Rambler with a rebuilt engine and patched upholstery. Your dad bought it for you to learn to drive. You'll ditch it as soon as you can afford a new one.

C++: A black Firebird, the all macho car. Comes with optional seatbelt (lint) and optional fuzz buster (escape to assembler).

ALGOL 60: An Austin Mini. Boy that's a small car.

ALGOL 68: An Aston Martin. An impressive car but not just anyone can drive it.

Pascal: A Volkswagon Beetle. It's small but sturdy. Was once popular with intellectual types.

LISP: An electric car. It's simple but slow. Seat belts are not available.

PROLOG/LUCID: Prototype concept cars.

FORTH: A go-cart.

LOGO: A kiddie's replica of a Rolls Royce. Comes with a real engine and a working horn.

APL: A double-decker bus. It takes rows and columns of passengers to the same place all at the same time but it drives only in reverse and is instrumented in Greek.

Ada: An army-green Mercedes-Benz staff car. Power steering, power brakes, and automatic transmission are standard. No other colors or options are available. If it's good enough for generals, it's good enough for you.

Java: All-terrain very slow vehicle.

What is an example of a never halting program?

Friedrichs and Magnus in front of an open elevator, each saying "you go first".

Company is bought in a hostile takeover by competitor using profits from their latest release, which had 783 bugs.

New CEO is brought in by board of directors. He hires a programmer to redo program from scratch.

Programmer produces code he believes is bug-free...

A grade school teacher was asking his pupils what their parents did fora living. "Tim, you be first. What does your mother do all day?"

Tim stood up and proudly said, "She's a doctor."

"That's wonderful. How about you, Amy?"

Amy shyly stood up, scuffed her feet and said, "My father is a mailman."

"Thank you, Amy" said the teacher. "What does your parent do, Billy?"

Billy proudly stood up and announced, "My daddy plays piano in a whorehouse."

The teacher was aghast and went to Billy's house and rang the bell. Billy'sfather answered the door. The teacher explained what his son had said anddemanded an explanation. Billy's dad said, "I'm actually a system programmerspecializing in TCP/IP communication protocol on UNIX systems. Howcan I explain a thing like that to a seven-year-old?"